COURTESY THEEPOXIES.COM

Catch the Oregon synth-punk
band on CD before the frenetic
fivesome tours in Hawaii

It's Day-Glo new wave blood beat, beat, beating through the heart of a punk rocker. A crisp-sounding mix of Devo, Blondie and the Descendents.

"Stop the Future" The Epoxies (Fat Wreck Chords)

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, all the way from the chilly climes of Portland, Ore., it's the Epoxies!

A favorite of the Pacific Northwest scene since the turn of the new millennium, the band is starting to tour to promote their just-released debut on the fave punk indie Fat Wreck Chords label, appropriately titled "Stop the Future."

The Epoxies will be part of a 50-state "Fat Tour" from September to December with fellow label acts Against Me!, Smoke or Fire and the Soviettes. So there's more than enough time to ready ourselves for their synth-punk attack before they come to our climes.

The fivesome of singer Roxy Epoxy, synth rider Fritz M. Static, guitar fingerist Viz Spectrum and rhythmists Shock Diode and Ray Cathode all combine for an album that, for at least its first two-thirds, is pure electroshock therapy fun.

"Stop the Future" kicks off with the driven one-two punch of "Radiation" and "This Day," before it chugs away through what I think would be a killer album "focus track" in "Synthesized."

It then takes an unexpected left turn with a cover of "Robot Man," a early 1975 ditty from German metal meisters the Scorpions. The Epoxies stripped-down attack is more punk than Teutonic fury -- which makes the song more in tune with its "crazy science fiction creation" lyrics.

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COURTESY THEEPOXIES.COM

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Four songs then make up the album's solid core: the boss-sounding "Wind Me Up," the TV love song "Everything Looks Beautiful on Video" (this band sure loves the comfort of the cathode ray ... ), the galloping title track, bulked up with Static's sinister synth, leading into a drum break that segues into the spazzy "Struggle Like No Other," with Epoxy getting a bit hiccupy a la Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons.

The band's freneticism then starts to slip a bit for the remainder of "Stop the Future," although "You Kill Me" is redeemed by a hook-filled bridge. The song "No Interest," with its preoccupation with microwaves, shopping malls and TV (again), comes across as a little too retro-with-a-wink.

But things thankfully slow down for the closer "Toys," a slow, synth march filled with so much ennui that it almost comes off as a morose joke. Just look at the chorus: "Boys and girls are just toys/made for one another/but I got news for you/even toys can hurt each other." And as these lost and lonely souls fade into the distance of a cold, silent night, so ends the album ... sigh.

Oh well, you can always start the fun again with Track One.